A Preface To Paradise Lost Quotes

The modern habit of doing ceremonial things unceremoniously is no proof of humility; rather it proves the offender’s inability to forget himself in the rite, and his readiness to spoil for every one else the proper pleasure of ritual.

We must therefore consider what these repetitions do for the hearers, not what they do for the poet.

Men knew not to say for a truth, the talkers in the hall knew not, warriors under the sky knew not, who received that cargo.

The best of Milton is in his epic ... Must Noah always figure in our minds drunk and naked, never building the Ark?

To follow the vocation does not mean happiness: but once it has been heard, there is no happiness for those who do not follow.

Music means not the noises it is nice to make, but the noises it is nice to hear. Good poetry means not the poetry men like composing, but the poetry men like to listen to or to read.

All poetry is oral, delivered by the voice, not read, and, so far as we are told, not written either. And all poetry is musical. The poet delivers it to the accompaniment of some instrument

but those who dislike ritual in general—ritual in any and every department of life—may be asked most earnestly to reconsider the question. It is a pattern imposed on the mere flux of our feelings by reason and will, which renders pleasures less fugitive and griefs more endurable, which hands over to the power of wise custom the task (to which the individual and his moods are so inadequate) of being festive or sober, gay or reverent, when we choose to be, and not at the bidding of chance.

The period of 1938–1945 saw Lewis emerge from the cloistered obscurity of academia to become a major religious, cultural, and literary figure. Without ceasing to publish works of academic merit, such as his Preface to “Paradise Lost,” he had established himself as a public intellectual who commanded the media, and was on the road to international celebrity.

Let us consider what would follow if we took Mr. Eliot's view [that the best contemporary practising poets are the only 'jury of judgement' whose verdict on his own views of Paradise Lost he will accept,] seriously. The first result is that I, not being one of the best contemporary poets, cannot judge Mr. Eliot's criticism at all. What then shall I do? Shall I go the the best contemporary poets, who can, and ask them whether Mr. Eliot is right? But in order to got to them, I must first know who they are. And this, by hypothesis, I cannot find out; the same lack of poethood which renders my critical opinions on Milton worthless renders my opinions on Mr. Pound or Mr. Auden equally worthless. Shall I then go to Mr. Eliot and ask him to tell me who the best contemporary poets are? But this, again, will be useless. I personally may think Mr. Eliot a poet—in fact, I do—but then, as he has explained to me, my thoughts on the matter are worthless. I cannot find out whether Mr. Eliot is a poet or not; and until I have found out I cannot know whether his testimony to the poethood of Mr. Pound and Mr. Auden is valid. And for the same reason I cannot find out whether *their* testimony to *his* poethood is valid. Poets become on this view and unrecognizable society (an Invisible Church), and their mutual criticism goes on within a closed circle which no outsider can possibly break into at any point. From: *A Preface to Paradise Lost* Chapter 2, pages 9-10.